


Piel Canela

by DanseDan



Series: GBU Lupita AU [1]
Category: Il buono il brutto il cattivo | The Good The Bad and The Ugly (1966)
Genre: ...dollars triplet AU if you know what you're looking for, Day At The Beach, Fluff, Gen, M/M, Modern AU, Tooth-Rotting Fluff, bad old people latin american music, surreptitiously giving Blondie too many siblings bc I am gonna project, trans blondie if you squint
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-14
Updated: 2020-11-14
Packaged: 2021-03-10 06:00:19
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,903
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27549487
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DanseDan/pseuds/DanseDan
Summary: Lupe can’t keep up with the amount of singers that have passed by on the radio in the past hour- started with Eidie Gorméz- Piel Canela, since tío Tuco was on a nostalgia kick- then suddenly switched over to Dolly Parton (9 to 5, what else?), then back into Chavela Vargas’ Llorona, then into Johnny Cash, Pedro Infante, Merle Haggard and Armando Manzanero. She could swear somewhere in there Angel joined the fray and snuck in a little Pavarotti, even. Never giving enough time for the song to finish before someone else had a bright idea and a new song came up, at first out of the genuine excitement of getting in the car for a day-trip together, and now, perhaps more in the rabid spirit of almost-quiet competition in between the two of her rowdier ‘uncles’.If it was a contest (it was) and if she had to choose a winner (she would, eventually, when tío Tuco gave up on the ‘quiet’ part of all of it and started to complain outright)… she would say Blondie was winning, God have mercy on their ears.-----The epilogue to my previous fic, "Tio Tuco, y Pues, los Otros"! Doesn't really make a lot of sense without reading that one first, but you could probably power through all the AU things and enjoy it anyway?
Relationships: "Blondie" | The Man with No Name/Tuco Ramirez, Angel Eyes/"Blondie" | The Man with No Name, Angel Eyes/"Blondie" | The Man with No Name/Tuco Ramirez
Series: GBU Lupita AU [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2013763
Comments: 5
Kudos: 4





	Piel Canela

**Author's Note:**

> AHSDKJFN ok so- here it is, absolutely not what I had planned but not at all something I'm angry at either. Just pure unadultered cheese and me forcing my grandpa-ass music taste on y'all. Thank you for all the support and fun comments on the last one!!! I DONT KNOW WHAT ELSE TO SAY JAJAJAJAJ

Lupe can’t keep up with the amount of singers that have passed by on the radio in the past hour- started with Eidie Gorméz- _Piel Canela_ , since tío Tuco was on a nostalgia kick- then suddenly switched over to Dolly Parton (9 to 5, what else?), then back into Chavela Vargas’ Llorona, then into Johnny Cash, Pedro Infante, Merle Haggard and Armando Manzanero. She could swear somewhere in there Angel joined the fray and snuck in a little Pavarotti, even. Never giving enough time for the song to finish before someone else had a bright idea and a new song came up, at first out of the genuine excitement of getting in the car for a day-trip together, and now, perhaps more in the rabid spirit of almost-quiet competition in between the two of her rowdier ‘uncles’.

If it was a contest (it was) and if she had to choose a winner (she would, eventually, when tío Tuco gave up on the ‘quiet’ part of all of it and started to complain outright)… she would say Blondie was winning, God have mercy on their ears. He was stretched out in the front seat while Angel steered the car, feet on the dashboard and entirely unconvincing hat flipped over his forehead, smiling wide under the brim every time Tuco surreptitiously leaned over the console to flip into another song with some excuse or another, like “oye, remember the time we got stuck on the 66 and this played three separate times on the radio?” or “achala, Blondie, the chords in that song are totally stolen from this one”. And the most she could do for her poor uncle was back him up with the hustle, come up with more reasons and back up his other ones- “yeah, tío, it totally sounds like that” or “this singer is like… the gringo version of that other guy, isn’t he? The colombiano-“ or, in the most desperate cases, invoking the quaint, bratty privilege of any spoiled nibling and crying “deeedo!” at the zillionth sad drawling cowboy complaining about his ‘darlin’ or wagon coming down.

They’d been at it since daybreak, after she puttered all the way up to their place from her dorm in the city and allowed them to feed her what was definitely too much breakfast (some long tangent or another, Blondie had explained to her in the confusion, had been occurring over Tuco and Angel’s memories of their mothers’ respective cooking, and they’d been playing at recipe historians through far too many phone calls to the monjitas and andalucenos, a phenomenon that ended in the delicious, though multitudinal results that were henceforth forced upon her). The plan was a day and a night on the seafront, in some rented beach house or another, to call in the end of summer and see each other again after two months when she’d been back down in Sonora running errands for her mom, married sisters and tío Pablo, and staying up too late to catch the Turkish telenovelas on canal 7. Three geezers, two bags and one overstuffed guest of honor piled into Blondie’s beat-up old Jeep to brave the 700km between the city house and Coronado beach, finding new and exotic ways to piss each other off to pass the time, all starting from before they even stepped into the car.

"is this the car?"

"Sí, no? I had the same reaction when he got it-"

"Hey," Blondie warned, almost sheepishly. "I wanted one as a kid and-"

“Exacto- what kinda kid wants a Jeep? Especially when they get rich-”

"There's nothing wrong with a jeep, tío. I wanted one too- It's the barbie dreamhouse car."

Of course, that hadn't helped at all, considering that tío Tuco had found it immediately hilarious, and kick-started a long and detailed meditation on all the similarities between Barbie and the blonde.

“It’s just the hair.”

“No way, Blondie- tell me Lupe, s’there a country Barbie?”

“Oh yeah- _Country Rock Barbie_ , I had it as a kid.”

“No you didn’t- kid, I can see your phone out-“

“She had a dog, too, in the 90s, tío.”

“ _hey_ -“

"Yeah! And she's from Wisconsin."

"What? No mames, ni verga que Barbie’s from Wisconsin.”

“Bueno, that’s what Google is saying-”

“well I’m from Illinois.”

“They’re the-!“

“same thing! And you can’t pin it on the kid’s lack of knowledge about US states this time, ‘cause I’ve been to both, Blondie!”

“they’re not the same- “

“verga, tío, it was one time! -“

“one time you thought Toronto was a U.S state, kid. Can’t let that gold go so soon.”

“Guadalupe…”

“…don’t look at me like that, tío Angel.”

And from there they’d gone on to a different subject- hobbling around from small talk about work and tío Tuco’s usual overblown anecdotes to counting diners passing by behind them, until they’d gotten onto this gimmick with the music and carried on for almost half an hour.

“Tío, I’m starting to believe all of these country dudes are serial killers or something.” The comment earned her some concerning breathing from the front seats- almost a giggle out of Angel Eyes, this time, with Blondie a little more distraught.

“O sea, how else do you get dumped that many times?”

“Ay Lupe, there are other reasons to dump a guy.”

“but _country_ dump him? ‘She-took-the-truck-the-dog-the-bible’ dump him?”

“well,” and from that instant they all knew what direction tío Tuco was taking them in, from the usual tone. “maybe these cowboy just can’t get it-“

“Kid, s’there anything you’d like to play?” She felt, before she saw, the hat being tossed at her in the way of an interruption. Smooth thud of brown leather on brown forehead, falling into her hands as tío Tuco grumbled and giggled about being interrupted, kicking the seat of the taller man in front of him. The hat in her hands was something like calfskin, probably, though she didn’t know anything about fabric. It felt heavy and neat in them, as she ran her fingers around the raw-edged brim.

“Look who’s awake.” Glancing back over the hat, his bright, wrinkly eyes were drawn up in a small, camera-ready smile.

“…good mornin’. Spare me a wake-up call?” he was trying too hard to look conspiratorial- it was a little insulting, with her track record, that he’d feel the need to make it so obvious- but she could feel the better part of her allow the gesture. He was trying his best, poor geezer.

“’course, Blondie. I’ve got just the thing.” And grabbing the phone off him with a faint, celebratory “yoink!” she switched into the song. Immediately, the car stereo began to sound off with the dulcet tones of Luis Miguel’s nigh-impossible vocal tone.

_“Somos novios_

_Pues los dos sentimos mutuo amor profundo_

_Y con eso_

_ya ganamos lo más grande_

_De este mundo”_

Even before she turned to tío Tuco to pull off her (incredibly talented, if she may say so herself) lipsyncing routine, she could hear his usual raspy laughter resounding from the corner of the car.

“hey, Lupe, don’t you think he’s a little too old for you?”

“What? Ewwwww tío, vete a la verga! I was trying to make fun of you! Quién te entiende…” she shook her head.

“Speaking of which, oye Lupe, y para cuándo el novio? We’re getting a bit old for the shotgun already!”

“eh, safo con esa tío-“

“I just wanna see you happy, kid-“

“well-“

“Tuco,” interrupted Angel, finally piping up from the driver’s seat. “Do tell us, about how many times have you used this song?”

Tío tuco smirked, his laugh a low, cocky rumble as he looked through the rearview mirror at Angel.

“Ja!- Too many to count!”

“God, really? Tío, that’s so sleazy.”

“…well, it worked on me” murmured Blondie from the front seat.

That prompted two light voices from the back to chorus in with a “what?”

Lupe cackled, “wait, tío, you don’t even remember?”

“can’t remember what I didn’t do!”

“can’t remember ‘cause you were drunk off your ass.”

“mierda, must’ve been, if I was playing that back in the boonies!”

That brought them back down into more of a silence. What must that be like, she wondered, to have been tío Tuco back then, in the backwoods and young and being and looking like he was. Was it anything like the summer in Sonora was for her, maybe, when she’d run chores to skip out on going to the beach with high school friends, dead afraid that they’d notice something off about her, like it was somehow obvious or spelled out on her face. Had he spent hours in church when it was empty (as reportedly shitty as the churches were up there), sitting, staring at the books and windows, guiltily shuffling around to help out with the duster before anyone could notice just how long he’d been in there for nothing, really, like she had? Taken up all sorts of sudden, quiet habits?

She shook those thoughts away and stared out the window, the winding road coming down ahead of them all flat and twisted, the twinkling sea in the horizon suddenly approaching sight. Probably not. Tío Tuco was brave, and confident- she’d learned bravado well enough, but it was another thing, the confidence. She took in the warmth coming off the glass, the fluffy clouds, and closed her eyes, suddenly smelling salt and breeze and summertime. Opened them again to realize it wasn’t her imagination, that Angel had opened the car windows and slung his shirtsleeved arm out one of them, slender fingers dancing on the sill almost in quiet greeting, just barely perceptible.

Tío Angel the worrywart. It made her feel warm again, and she reached out her own hand to drum along the door in thankful response.

Between whirling air and sweet music, the bright beach drew closer and closer in relative silence until they’d finally made their arrival. Clambering out of the tall vehicle and reaching back into the trunk, they passed towels, bags, chairs and a bright-orange beach ball and nagged after each other mildly, falling into lockstep on parade into their usual spot, secluded near a massive wall of eroded stones and partially shaded by the palm fronds lining the elevated road. Predictably, the three old men settled together in the sand- Angel in a folding chair, still fully dressed in his thin linen dayclothes and stiff Panama hat, tío Tuco having flopped onto the sand already open-shirted, and Blondie sleepily taking off his t-shirt to follow suit, bringing out sunscreen and other amenities.

Lupe leaves her flip-flops with them (throws them off, almost docking tío Tuco straight in the eye- whoops.) and makes the executive decision to keep Blondie’s hat, perching it on her head and immediately feeling it fall over her brow, too big but comfortingly heavy with a sensation not unlike the man’s own proclivity for awkward pats of the head. The thin netting of her pareo flows behind her as she starts to stroll on the soft sand, taking in the emptiness of the end-of-summer season, with only a few straggling groups on the bayside, little dots in the middle distance or further away, and the sprinkling of rocks, shells and driftwood at her feet. Damn tío Tuco and his nostalgic taste, she thinks, having half a verse of some song or another stuck dancing by in her head- _me importas tú, y tú, y tú, y solamente tú_ \- picking up a stick and brandishing it like a conductor, up-down, up-down, up.

And suddenly another voice humming behind her, to the faux-conducted tempo.

“Well, I didn’t know you sang, kid.”

A glance back and a childish grimace back at the gringo’s calm smile below his glasses.

“Hey Blondie, did tío Tuco ever teach you the phrase _pinche_ _fulo engreído_?”

“Ja! That was one of the first, Lupe. Too bad he’ll never learn, eh Blondie?”

Tío Tuco ambled down towards them, careful not to slip down on the soft mountains of sand. He gestured to the stick in Lupe’s hand.

“Hey kid, you lookin’ to poke someone’s eye out with that?”

“s’neat, isn’t it?” she spun it around, trying to remember her marching band days as a batutera. “maybe we should’ve brought Dolly along.”

"Santa maría- Dolly would've crushed us in that car. Still, Blondie, where is that mutt?" 

"She's with my sister."

"Blondie, you have a sister?"

"yeah,” he said, almost bashful. “I’m one of five"

"Five Blondies?! Dios te ampare, tío, are they all like this one?”

"Hmm…” tío Tuco fell into a contemplative pose. “Well, he's the hot one.”

“I’m a triplet, you rat.”

“Wait, there’s three just like him?!”

“Like I said, he’s the hot one. The old one’s too grim, y el otro is like a kid,” and with a little flair of a grimace- “…ni hablar de the older brother. Díos lo bendiga, but I don’t know how you put up with that guy for half a life. Ellie is a dear, though.”

“chas, Tío, that’s some strong judgements.”

“…you know, he ain’t terribly wrong.” Glasses finally prompted off; he was massaging his browbone with an almost-smile. Opening them, he turned back to Tuco with a short gesture.

“are we gonna get in?”

“sure- “looking expectantly at Lupe, who only paused and shook her head.

“gonna head back for a second, vayan sin mí, ok?” and dropping her stick, she skipped back to their spot, trying her best not to disturb Angel- nose stuck in a battered paperback- as she approached and set the hat back on the towel.

“ _Fools Die_ …”

He looked up at her from under the pages, seemingly unimpressed by her effort at a dramatic accent.

“The other chair’s in the bag.” He drawled.

She nodded, dutifully unfolding it next to his while he dog-eared the book and set it down on the sand. They both sat back as she quietly leaned her soft head into his strong shoulder, the motions of comfortably slotting next to each other second nature after years of habit.

“…they’re trying to drown each other.”

“¿Qué más esperabais de ellos?” he said.

“no sé… decencia, maduréz…” she looked up at him, conspiratorial smile mellowing into concern.

“Oye, tío Angel… ¿qué hay contigo?”

The man reached up to take hold of his pipe, almost caught a bit off guard. He avoided her gaze, letting the thick-smelling smoke curl up from his mouth.

“Nada, solo pensando."

"Cuéntame." Insistent as ever- maybe it ran in the family. Placing the pipe back in his mouth, he sucked on the smoke and regarded the pair far in front of them, Two grown men, squinting through the sunlight and wrestling each other in and out of the clear, shallow water, laughing and cursing audible even from a distance. Looked at their contrasting bodies- tall and short, light and tan- both no longer trim with age and poor habit, but Blondie still considerably more muscular, sun-bleached scars blending into the lightly freckled skin of his chest.

 _Blondie_. The nickname still a sticking point, with him.

And finally looking back down, the resilient pair of young, brown eyes worrying after him.

"Vosotros no sabéis cuanto ese hombre se preocupa que os agrade."

And they darted back with his, to look at the two of them- slowly craning her neck off its perch, watching with a quiet expression. Verga, Blondie. She supposed if he was good for anything, it was to stirs up all sorts of emotions in people.

"Me agrada suficiente,” she said- the phrase was wispy and noncommittal, but not without affection. When their eyes met again, through the pipe-smoke, the mutual weariness of their expressions gave way to a teasing smile on the young girl’s face.

“pero no me agrada tu silencio- come on, tío Angel, let’s live a litte."

And despite a touch of tired resistance, he soon found himself rising off the folding chair and folding up his clothes, trailing behind her in their walk towards the ocean. The sun was shining, warm on the crown of his head and streaming down into his eyes, but as he grew accustomed to the light he caught a pair of eyes on him- round black eyes, lovestruck and affectionate.

“Ángel.”

He couldn’t help but smile, strut a little straighter right at him.

“hey, kid, what was that word you wanted to teach me, something like ‘ehn-grey-yee-doh’?”

The other pair of eyes on him, golden-brown hair slick-wet and falling over his forehead, that smart, wide smile under the excess stubble, a challenging green glance.

And suddenly a light, bubbling stream of laughter under a headlock, beside him- the short shock of black curls like halo melding into Tuco’s as they leaned on each other.

“Buena, Blondie. You sure learn quick.”

Tired, broken, bothersome- all sorts of things- but a family. His family.

And despite his hesitance to admit it, that warm, thick contentment in his gut stayed alight for the rest of the afternoon, well into the shuffled, lazy packing and the peaceful drive back home, trading symphonies with Lupe on the radio while his two partners, spent from a day of bickering and made shameless by lethargy, slept in the backseat, limbs slung over each other in an unconscious and unflattering embrace.

Two idiots and a kid packed into a Jeep with him, somehow bearing the worth of the world.

**Author's Note:**

> Translatiooooons:
> 
> engreido: conceited/a showoff (yes this is what Blondie is horribly mispronouncing at the end lol) 
> 
> Angel and Lupe's conversation is translated as such:
> 
> “What more could you expect from them?”  
> “I don't know… decency, maturity…hey, tío Angel… what's with you?”  
> “nothing, just thinking."  
> "tell me."  
> "You two don't know how much that man worries about being liked by you."  
> "I like him well enough, but I don't like your silence- come on, tío Angel, let’s live a litte."


End file.
